## 35.27. Picking a Name for a New Command

When you write a new program or shell script, you'll probably want to be sure that its name doesn't conflict with any other commands on the system. For instance, you might wonder whether there's a command named tscan. You can check by typing one of the commands in the following example. If you get output (besides an error) from one of them, there's probably already a command with the same name. (The type command works on ksh, bash, and many Bourne shells; I've shown it with a dollar sign (`$`) prompt.)

`which` Section 2.6, `whereis` Section 2.3, `alias` Section 29.2

>     % man 1 tscan
>     No manual entry for tscan in section 1.
>     % which tscan
>     no tscan in . /xxx/ehuser/bin /usr/bin/X11 /usr/local/bin ...
>     % whereis tscan
>     tscan:
>     % alias tscan
>     %
>     % whatis tscan
>     tscan:
>     $ type tscan
>     tscan not found

-- JP

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